Historians Seek to Save Schooner Wapama

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, October 30, 1996

What do you say about a big wooden hunk of West Coast history that's dying?

The artful assemblage of long- length fir in question is the steam schooner Wapama, formerly known as the Tongass, which now sits in massive but decayed glory on a barge in Sausalito.

As property of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, the Wapama was earmarked last June for dismantling by the National Park Service. Dry rot has attacked 80 percent of its structure. As 200 feet of wood, the ship has deteriorated drastically, including a sag in its bow and stern, compared with the center of the vessel.

The cost of rebuilding such a ship -- it cannot simply be repaired -- is prohibitive, according to the Park Service.

The Park Service's plan offers three alternatives for rehabilitating the maritime park at San Francisco's Aquatic Park and its ships, all of which call for the Wapama to be sacrificed so that the other vessels owned by the facility might be saved.

They include the Balclutha, a favorite of visitors; the lumber schooner C. A. Thayer; the scow schooner Alma; the former Northwestern Pacific rail ferry Eureka; and the former Western Pacific rail tug Hercules.

Steam schooners are a major part of West Coast maritime history. Once common in coastwise shipping, hauling lumber and passengers between California and the Pacific Northwest, some 200 steam schooners were crewed by outstanding sailors and combative union organizers, most of them Scandinavian.

Indeed, the steam schooners were once known as the "Scandinavian Navy."

Now the lumber trade has vanished, the Scandinavians' descendants live in the suburbs, and all that is left to commemorate their contribution to West Coast history is the Wapama.

Bill Thomas, superintendent of the park, stressed that under the plan the Wapama would be maintained as long as possible before dismantling, but said he had no idea how long that might be.

He stressed that rebuilding would cost a minimum of $18 million, and that the history of fund raising for the Wapama over the past 20 years has been bleak.

"All the rest of the vessels we own would cost about $16 million altogether to rehabilitate, and $18 million for one ship is an impossibility. We are having problems raising money for those vessels that can reasonably be fixed up," he said.

But lovers of West Coast ships have turned out to save the Wapama, as difficult as the task may be.

"Contrary to the opinion of the nonexperts in the Park Service, the Wapama is worth restoring," commented Captain Harold Huycke, an experienced seaman and maritime historian. "First would be to cover her with a full tarp to protect her from winter rains. The bureaucrats in the park service don't understand her importance."

"When we rehabilitated the Jeremiah O'Brien we never had a lot of cash, but we received donations from paint and energy companies," he said, referring to restoration of the liberty ship. Patterson noted that borate needed to arrest dry rot in the Wapama's hull had been provided gratis by U.S. Borax, but that donation ended when the Park Service ceased active work maintaining the Wapama.

But love and dedication have rescued lost causes many times in the region's past. As Patterson said: "It is our responsibility to save historic ships. The Wapama is the last of its kind."